Torchwood: The Heir of Obligation
by Rodlox
Summary: Toshiko vs Sarah Jane, with the fate of Torchwood and the Daleks at stake.
1. Chapter 1

-1---------------------------------------

Title:The heir of obligation.

Part 1.

Author:Keenir.

Summary:Toshiko Sato is the daughter of the vassal of the mortal enemy of the best friend of Sarah Jane Smith. English translation as follows.

Pairing:none.

Response to _The Thirteen Nights of Christmas: Sixth Night Challenge_ over at the Sarah Jane LJ http:// community. Challence: _**Everything's got a cost. Everyone's driven by something that makes any cost worth paying. The question is how your team can live with you afterwards.**_

Author's note:I have integrated the Christmas Challenge from Torchwood 100 here too. http:// community. is, simply put, unclean meat. Non-**_kosher_**.

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The door opened. Fully dressed, the lady of the house was toweling off her hair. "Yes? Can I help you?"

"Toshiko Sato," Tosh introduced herself as, holding up an open wallet.

"Its blank, miss Sato."

Tosh didn't need to look at it -- nine times out of ten, the bloody paper didn't read her thoughts. She was more susceptible to psychic paper than anybody else in Torchwood, yet she couldn't project a simple ID onto the stuff. "It happens," shrugging as she pocketed it. "I'm with Torchwood. We'd like to ask you a few questions, preferably down at the station."

"What's this about?"

"You're Sarah Jane Smith, aren't you?" having spent last night searching through files and documents for her…after failed searches for 'Romana' and 'Ian Chesterton' and 'Jaime McCrimmon.'

"Yes, I -- Oh! I'm sorry I didn't recognize you sooner; my mind's been in such a muddle lately," Sarah Jane said. "Come in, please. How are you?"

"I'm fine," Tosh said. "I'd love to come in, but there's so much work to do…" shrugging helplessly. _Soon enough, we won't be overburdened_.

Mum had called last night, asking how she'd been. And, dutiful daughter that she was, she'd told mum everything -- from the Slitheen's arrival to the arrival of Jack Harkness in Torchwood. Mum's words still echoed in her mind: **He left you. The Doctor paid you notice only to learn where the pig was. To him, you are less than _treif._ I will not stand by and abide my daughter's quiet acceptance of such treatment. He is your enemy. He is the Doctor.**

"You're friends with the Doctor," Tosh said.

"Well yes," Sarah Jane said, smiling not quite sadly. "Its hard not to be friends with him."

"Sorry," Tosh said.

"'Sorry'?"

"Yeah -- sorry for not being clearer. Are you still friends with him?"

"Why do you ask?"

'Professional curiosity.' 'Idle chatter.' 'My parents asked me to check.' And she said none of those. "A Torchwood agent saw the two of you together recently."

"Oh well, you know how time is."

Twists and turns and wefts like a noodle in a sweater. "Yeah. So…could you come in, please?"

A smile. "All right. Let me lock up first."

Tosh nodded. "Go ahead." _I'll wait._

When she returned, Sarah Jane slipped on a pair of gloves and a jacket. "At least I won't be alone this Christmas."

_That's always a plus, I suppose, _as they headed to Tosh's car.

_-------_

Sarah Jane's lack of overt reaction -- on being taken into the corridor that led to Torchwood -- was no real surprise: both UNIT and Torchwood had long since noted the disillusioned, sometimes jaded reactions that the Doctor's companions had to common and uncommon things on Earth. 'Too much of the alien' some at Torchwood's psychiatry offices said, which dovetailed with official policy so nicely that it was adopted as excuse used to prevent the Doctor from taking any Torchwood employees as companions.

Even when the cogwheel rolled aside, all Sarah Jane did was tilt her head, popping a joint in her neck.

"Can we help you?" Jack asked, figuring that the 'see how long we can pretend you're not here' wasn't going to work if Tosh'd brought her here. Besides which, the last person Tosh'd brought, had been a deadly alien.

"Captain Jack Harkness," Tosh said, "meet Sarah Jane Smith." And that was when she noticed somebody had - somehow - put a Santa sock hat on Jack's head.

Once the cogwheel had shut, Tosh made sure her back was against the wall, and pulled her gun on Sarah Jane. "By the drinks," Tosh said.

"Tosh?" Owen asked.

"This is nothing," Sarah Jane said. "Her mother was even more fun at parties."

Shrugging, "Happy Christmasolstikwanzakah," Jack said. Okay, technically he said something closer to Christmeireaeasolsticasaratarakrawanzaraeioiazakah, which only served to remind everyone how odd Americans are.

Ianto distributed eggnogg to everyone.

Sarah Jane politely turned hers down.

Gwen downed hers with a flourish.

Owen was nursing his.

Tosh was checking said beverage for its alcohol content.

Jack refused the eggnogg on religious grounds: egg.

And the surprise guest arrived. The one nobody's invited, but arrived anyway.

It would've been creepier, more ominous and foreboding…if only the holiday lights didn't sparkle off its domes just so…if only it didn't shine with such a festive cheer.

Tosh said, "Dalek," and holstered her gun. Not once had she had to turn off the safety.

After spinning its optical stalk around its entire radius, the Dalek's entire shell shone for a second with a light that made all the humans - save for Jack - double over, throwing up whatever was in their stomach. "Location - Torchwood Three."

"That it is," Jack said.

"Utilized as sympathetic facility to arrivtal of Dalek forces in its future."

"Wha?" Owen croaked, spitting out what foul taste was left in his mouth.

"The Daleks invade Earth in the 22nd Century," Tosh said.

"Unfortunately," Sarah Jane said.

"Are you….going to invade…early?" Gwen asked.

"There is no reason," answered the Dalek. "Leave!" the Dalek ordered them.

"Or what?" Jack asked it.

"Leave!"

"Make me."

"Leave or be transported."

"Transpor…" Gwen said. "You'd send us to Australia?"

The Dalek wasn't the only one that turned optics toward Gwen. "'Australia'?" Owen asked.

"Sorta did me thesis on the Transportation," Gwen said.

"Leave!" the Dalek repeated. "Leave or be transported."

"Somehow," Sarah Jane said, "I suspect he means transportation to a place farther than that."

"Correct. Leave."

Rather than reply - again - Jack turned to Tosh. "Why?"

"'Why'?" Tosh repeated, almost laughing at the hilarity of it. "'Why'?"

"Reasonable question."

She nodded. "Because truth is truth, you could say, even to the very end of reckoning."

---------------------------------------------

TWO DAYS BEFORE:

'_**Truth was truth**_

'_**even to the very end of reckoning.'**_

Tosh knew the saying, could recite it and its context blindfolded - and had once won a bet at University doing that exact thing - and hated it all the same.

Dad worked for UNIT, took her to the occasional unofficial get-togethers, made all the right introductions for her to the big names of UNIT, told her as much as could be told without violating the Official Secrets Act. She'd met Miss Smith, and Sir and Lady Chesterton (knighted by Richard the Lionhearted personally), and a man everyone called 'Brigadier' even though he'd passed that rank long ago.

And then there was Mum. Mum's story required a security clearance high enough that few people below the rank of Secretary General and Queen Mother could attain. Mum who'd been a ward of UNIT as a child and continuing into her teenage years, and was now among the top echelon of Torchwood. Mum was one of the few who'd survived both the Slitheen and Cybermen invasions. Mum who oversaw the several Torchwoods that'd survived, giving each a measure of autonomy for now.

For now. She made no secret that she was waiting. Mr. Sato wasn't the only one who hoped she was biding her time for the perfect moment to fold Torchwood into UNIT; he wasn't the only one to hope so, but he hoped the most fervently out of all of them.

For Toshiko, it was sheer chance that she was working in Torchwood too. After the Slitheen had cut down so many alien experts, fresh blood was needed and fast. And in the wake of the Battle of Canary Bay, anyone who knew anything about the Daleks was primed for the fast track to power. And with all the bedtime stories she'd soaked up as a child, Tosh knew the Daleks better than most people did, save for the Doctor.

She wasn't sure how she felt about the Doctor. Intellectually, she knew she should hate the Doctor, knew she was supposed to either catch or kill the Doctor - in the name of Torchwood, preferably. Emotionally, she wasn't so sure. He'd been nice to her, had reassured her when her mind was still reeling from the Slitheen trickery. But so too had he popped back out, gone when she had questions which so badly needed answers. Tosh hoped the Doctor didn't show up any time soon, as she didn't want to press the issue of which side she'd come down on.

'If its alien, its ours' went the motto of Torchwood One. The Doctor was the enemy, of that there was no doubt. He was alien, which made him Torchwood property in accordance with Her Imperial Highness Queen Victoria's declaration. And he was the enemy of Mum.

And that was why Shakespear's saying rubbed Tosh the wrong way. There'd been a reason why UNIT asked the Satos to come in once a month and give a blood sample from each of them, Mum and Tosh particularly. Mum had been a battle computer once, a little girl adopted by the Daleks and made part of their machinery -- from all she'd heard, neither the Doctor nor the Daleks had ever explained the process - and had only been released from their custody by the death of the planet Skaro. The Dalek homeworld had died on the day that Mum'd been picked up by UNIT, dropped off at UNIT by a friend of the Doctor, a person named Ace.

Standing out here in the chill air, Tosh sighed. Other children got to hear tales of princesses and peas, giants and beanstalks. Other children were regaled with stories of blarney stones, banshees, and Formosans. She had grown up on reports of what the Doctors had done, what the Daleks had done, and of the epic battles the two sides had waged against one another.

Not for the first time, she wondered if Owen had forgotten she'd said she was going to be standing here at this pre-arranged time. She liked to think she'd be precise even without the Daleks' influence on her, just like she wonders if she'd be a chimera without their interference. Both were securely in the realm of the great untestable ideas.

Time was a constant, provided you kept clear of things like black holes - those disastrous inventions of the Time Lords. So what was keeping Owen, what was holding him up? What --

Before Tosh's eyes, there was a fuzzing of the air across the street. Fuzzing that turned to blurring, which gave way to flickering, brief snapshots of a shape that never was entirely there all at once, but which revealed itself like a B movie harem girl, a bit here and then a bit there… And with just that, Tosh knew what it was -- couldn't not know what it was, not when part of her brain lit up with the recognition. She smothered an excited squeal, and wondered if that noise would've been subconscious in origin, or if the Daleks actually liked that sound.

For a Dalek is what it was.

Giving up on Owen turning on the stone elevator, Tosh dashed across the street - careful to look both ways like she'd been taught, even with the neighborhood empty for this time of day. Coming to a stop just in front of the Dalek's body, Tosh wondered what it would sound like. Would it sound like Mum's voice when she recalled her days as a battle computer? Would it sound like Hal? Dave Bowman? John Lennon?

At last, the Dalek stopped flickering, fully materialized now, plunger-shaped hand and firing device aiming to the left. It spun its optical stalk towards Tosh. "Identify," it said.

_Yup, like mum._

"Toshiko Sato," Tosh answered before she could give the matter even half a thought. "Florence's daughter."

"You are not known," and Tosh's heart and mind paused in alarm, relaxing when the arms of the Dalek hadn't moved. "Identify."

"I am an enemy of the Doctor." Both Mum and Torchwood made that statement true.

"Acceptable. Speak."

"I…" _Um… _ What did one say to a legend? How does a person address the master and commander of one's mother? "Do you have suggestions?" and kicked herself for how lame that sounded. _Of all the things you could've asked,_ she berated herself.

"What is the location of the Doctor?"

"I don't know."

It was silent, its optical stalk not wavering, not even so much as a twitch. _What now? _Tosh asked herself. _Maybe I should've started off with a question, like if it could help me with this translation I'm having trouble with back at… Wait a minute._

But before she could ask, "What is the location of the Doctor's companions?" it asked.

"I don't know," and it started to swivel its arms towards her. Knowing full well the wide range of functions a Dalek could utilize its arms for, Tosh quickly added, "But I can find them," and frowned inwardly: _not 'but I can find out'? _she asked herself.

"Human. You have desires?"

"Yeah, I…" _Wait a minute, mum never said anything about Dalek's having pick-up lines. Please tell me that that wasn't a pick-up line. Owen's more original than that_. "I do," and braced herself.

"What do you want?"

"Help."

"I can supply help."

"Can you help me with a translation?"

"Affirmative. Locate the companions, and translation will be supplied."

"And it would help immensely if Earth was --"

"This planet shall be protected," the Dalek said. "Go."

How had mum always responded to instructions from Daleks? Oh yes… "I obey," and left it alone.

The Dalek vanished.

-----------------------

To be continued.


	2. Chapter 2

-1Title:The heir of obligation.

Part 2

Summary:Toshiko Sato is the daughter of the vassal of the mortal enemy of the best friend of Sarah Jane Smith. English translation as follows.

-----------

**PART TWO:**

---------------

"Correct. Leave."

Rather than reply - again - Jack turned to Tosh. "Why?"

"'Why'?" Tosh repeated, almost laughing at the hilarity of it. "'Why'?"

"Reasonable question."

She nodded. "Because truth is truth, you could say, even to the very end of reckoning." b 

"Leave," the Dalek repeated.

"Just one question," Sarah Jane said, taking a single step towards the Dalek.

"Do Not Advance!" turning its little cannon towards her.

"I only have one question."

"Speak."

"If you're really a Dalek -"

"There is no question."

"- then to whom do you have loyalty?"

All was silent, too quiet, for several minutes, before the Dalek said, "Clarify."

"Do you serve the Emperor, the Black Dalek, or maybe someone else. I'd just like to know who ordered my death."

"You will not die."

"We all die."

"Correct."

"So who ordered you to kill me?"

"I will not kill you. I am of Cult of Skaro."

Tosh swallowed, her stomach a heavy pit, and herself feeling a right fool. _Right species, right civilization…wrong loyalty! _"No," she whispered too quiet for anyone but herself and the Dalek to hear.

"Yes."

"Should this 'cult of Skaro' mean something to me?" Sarah Jane asked.

"The Emperor obeys them," Jack said. "Or at least he did until the Time War."

"So now you're going to dirty your hands with my death?"

"No," it answered, and turned its plunger in the direction of the hand-held water vessels. The plunger pursed itself together, reshaping itself into an open-ended tin can, from which a burst of fire erupted. "Do not interfere." The can collapsed on itself, returning to its plunger shape.

"That's new," Jack said.

"It is not."

Sarah and Tosh nodded.

"Don't mind us," Owen said.

"I think it'd forgotten we were here," Gwen said under her breath.

"Negative," the Dalek said, and thrust its plunger towards the water containers, the arm extending farther and farther, until the plunger gripped one of the containers. Not the one with the hand or the head, but one with a block that looked three-dimensional as long as you didn't try to look right at it.

"Okay," Jack said, "if you're seeing this," referring to the arm, "and not thinking what I'm thinking, I don't know you."

"Okay," Ianto said.

"You didn't need my help at all," Tosh said to the Dalek.

"That is correct," it replied.

"Then why…why did you ask me to do this?" Tosh asked.

"Your loyalty was questioned."

"By who?"

"By I."

"Why?" _Have to know._

"You are the production result of the Black Dalek's slave."

"'The inequities of the parents,'" Tosh quoted.

"Yes."

"And her?"

"The inequities of owner."

"Excuse me?" Sarah Jane asked.

"The Doctor will rescue you."

"Don't be too sure."

The iris - in the center of the optical stalk - narrowed. "Explain. Explain."

"I told him to say goodbye. To me," in case the Dalek, super-genius it may be, needed **that **clarified. "He's gone off."

"You lie!"

"Trust a Dalek to misinterpret the truth," she said with a chuckle.

"Daleks do not misinterpret. Do not. Do not."

"Sounds like he's trying to convince himself," Ianto commented sotto voice. Gwen and Owen nodded.

The iris went back to normal wide field again. "Very well," and retracted the arm, not letting go of the container nor of its contents. Once the arm was back to its traditional length, the arm torus of the Dalek body swiveled, and the arm elongated again, this time lengthening until the vessel was right over the nearest computer (Owen's, as it happens).

"Bloody 'ell," Owen grumbled.

And down went the vessel, crackling the glass just a smidge against the keyboard. Electricity flowed to and from the Dalek and from and to the computer.

"I suppose," Jack said, "this would be a bad time to mention that that wasn't water."

"What is it?"

"Time Tunnel Initiated!" the Dalek intoned.

Nodding, "Time," Jack said.

Sarah Jane recalled something her Doctor had told her: that time-tunneling was very dangerous, particularly in comparison with travel by Tardis. "You had time tunnel technology?"

"A fetal Tardis, actually."

"So that's what it was looking for," Tosh said.

"And found, so it seems," Sarah Jane said.

"Time Tunnel Active," the Dalek said. "Moving!"

"I don't feel anything," Gwen said.

"Wait til we park," Sarah Jane suggested.

"Park?" Jack asked. "You parked?"

"Did you crash?"

"Downhill," Tosh said, "both ways."

"Arrive!" it interrupted them, as the facility felt like it **shifted** only sideways - and yet felt like it only **dropped** down a foot. Nobody who was an alien, frequent temporal traveler, genetically altered in utero, or already dead, fell down. In other words, only the Smut Patrol (their unofficial name -- Owen, Gwen, and Ianto) collapsed.

Although the pterodactyl crawled out of its cave, wobbled about on its hind legs, and dropped to the main floor, snoring the snore of chainsaws.

"So hard to find good pets these days," Jack said.

Focusing its vision on Sarah Jane, the Dalek asked her, "Is this true? The Doctor has abandoned you?"

"Not 'abandoned.' Just left. Said goodbye."

"Serve me."

"If he says 'service me,'" Owen quipped, "I'm gonna barf."

"Serve the Daleks."

Eyes narrow, "No," Sarah Jane said.

"Leave this facility," sending an instruction to the cogwheel to roll to the side once more, dry midlands air blowing inside.

"Where are we? What planet?"

"Location is unchanged," the Dalek said. "Arrival two hundred and sixty-five million years before departure. You Will Leave."

"And if I don't?"

"You are Torchwood. They are Torchwood."

"Me for them, is that is now? Is that your equation, now that you can't get to the Doctor through me?"

"Incorrect. Torchwood will die -- individually," saying that word like Daleks always said 'exterminate,' "until you obey."

"Then shoot me first," Tosh said.

The plunger separated from the arm, with the plunger staying where it was, controlled by remote; the arm formed a new plunger, which was brought back and swiveled around to face Tosh. It touched her face, and pulled away as though it had been corrupted.

"That's new," Jack said.

"What?" Tosh asked.

"You," the Dalek said. "You are Mother Of Daleks."

"Shit," Owen said. "Tosh?"

"You are unauthorized," it said to Tosh.

"Then you'll probably want to be quick about it," Tosh said, holding her chin up. _As Methos said, 'cut clean.' Lookit, I'm reduced to quoting Canadien tv shows._ A sigh. _Well, better than the alternative, I suppose._

"You are unauthorized."

"Feedback loop?" Ianto asked, whose knowledge of intelligent machines - Torchwood's mainframe excepted - began and ended with Cyberwomen.

"Possible," Sarah Jane said. "But I doubt it. For one thing, it wouldn't be any better."

"You will wait," the Dalek said to Tosh, "for authorization to deliver."

"Does this mean no sudden delivery in the dead of night?" Tosh asked.

"Maybe you'll get lucky, Tosh, and not have morning sickness," Owen suggested thoughtfully.

Tosh gave him a Look.

"You will deliver the Daleks," it said, "at the time selected by the Daleks. Leave here."

"What, now?"

"Now." Its optics swiveling between Tosh and Sarah Jane, "Both of you."

"Shoot me," Tosh said.

"Leave now." Swiveling towards Jack and the others, "Leave now or they will be exterminated."

"Isn't that par for the course?"

Nodding, "Absolutely," Sarah Jane said. "Isn't extermination what you're bred for?"

"I am Dalek Cult of Skaro Dalek. I think."

"You think therefore you are?" Owen asked, "Or you think you're a Dalek?"

"Nice costume," Jack complimented it.

It turned its optic stalk towards Jack. "You are not a valid target."

"First time anyone's told me that."

"Why's that?" Owen asked.

"He is dead," it replied while firing at Owen.

"NO!" Tosh screamed.

The optical stalk spun around towards Tosh, the weapon now aimed at Ianto. "Leave. Or." When a Dalek said **_'or,' _**it was an option, not a sentence fragment like humans thought of it as.

Closing her eyes and dropping her head so her chin rested on her chest, "Fine," Tosh said. "Okay." _You win._ "Just…just let me say goodbye to them, and I'll go."

In response, the Dalek went back to watching Sarah Jane.

Tosh walked across Torchwood to where everyone had now gathered. 'I'm sorry," knowing that that wasn't enough, but not knowing what else to say. She crouched down alongside Owen's body as it grew colder, and rested one hand on his chest. "I'm sorry," and felt a slight itch along the heel of that hand. (a subcutaneous itch, mind you)

Owen gasped for breath. "Tosh?" hoping that this wasn't going to be a replay of the Glove Incident with Suzie.

"Dalek biotechnology," the Dalek said, not turning anything towards them. "Memetic programming reworking behavior of genetic sequences. You are Torchwood. You serve the Daleks."

Tosh closed her eyes.

"We serve…the Queen," Owen said, and Tosh smiled that, even now, even in his curent state, he was still good ol' Owen.

"Your founder accepted what few orders we gave her. We instructed her to create Torchwood. Her reasoning and motivations beyond us are irrelevant." **Now** swinging the stalk to look at Tosh. "You have acted. Leave." Looking again at Sarah Jane, "Leave," it said to her as well.

Tosh stood up, "Bye," she said to Owen, and said it again as she passed Ianto.

Impulsively, Ianto grabbed her by her upper arms, pulled her to him, and planted a firm kiss on her lips. Then he let go; and Tosh blinked, surprised, as she headed for the cogwheel door.

"Later, Tosh," Owen said as she stepped over the lip of the doorway, planting a foot in the caked pan of an empty grassless veldt. Baked mud underfoot, Toshiko stepped fully out of the facility, Sarah Jane following.

"You know you haven't heard the last from us," Sarah Jane said, deliberately chosing 'from' rather than 'of.'

"Time will tell," the Dalek said.

"Now that's scary," Sarah Jane said to Tosh.

"What's that?" Tosh asked.

"It tried making a joke."

"Daleks do not try," it corrected her, and commanded the cogwheel to roll closed once Sarah Jane was fully outside. "Time Tunnel Initiated. Time Tunnel Active.

"Moving."

"Where to now?" Jack asked.

"Returning."

"Returning to something we know, or something you know?" Ianto asked, hoping they didn't land in the middle of the Battle of Canary Bay.

"Arrived," and soon thereafter, "Activated spacial folding," and it vanished from Torchwood 3.

And so did the fetus of a Tardis.

"This could be a problem."

"Only a small one," Gwen said, checking her computer. "We're one second after we left. We're home again."

"We were home with Tosh," Owen said, and Ianto nodded.

**--------------**

**PERMIAN ERA:**

"This could take a while," Tosh said. "They want both of us alive…so they're not going to just forget us."

A nod. "Let's just hope they don't go extinct before they tell anyone we're back here," Sarah Jane said.

"Oh yes." Just then, "Hello," as a Tardis appeared a dozen meters away.

"Like we said," Tosh said, "they'll be back for me. Whether it's the Daleks or somebody else, I'll get picked up." Eventually.

"You're sure?" Sarah Jane asked. "I'm sure we could -"

"Its not a good idea to argue with your doctor," a feeble attempt at a joke. "But thank you for the offer. I appreciate it.

"Now go, before I change my mind."

Sarah Jane nodded, reading from the tone that Tosh wasn't about to change her mind. "I'll be seeing you, then."

"I look forwards to it."

Sarah Jane strode up to the Tardis door, looked back, and entered the Tardis.

"She'll be fine," said the lone person in the Tardis with her. "She gets picked up tomorrow. Not sure what time goes back, but a day out here shouldn't be too awful bad." There was something about the Doctor that she recognized him whenever she saw him -- she'd had the hunch back when first meeting the last regeneration at the school, but had played along -- and that something told her that this was him.

The scarf was back, and the shoes hadn't changed from the regeneration she'd met at the school, but the rest of him was a different man. _Hardly surprising, I suppose._ Walking up to him, she found herself engulfed in a bear hug.

"I missed you," the Doctor told her, a faint Manx accent to his voice this time. "This me's willing to try domestic, so long as its with you."

Sarah Jane tried to think of something to say…but after a minute of thought, all she could think of was, "You've got stubble," Sarah Jane said, her cheek against his.

"Well now, couldn't let the Master be the only Time Lord with a decent goatee, now could I? Just wouldn't be cricket."

"No indeed," she agreed, kissing him.

-----------------------------

**The End**

Author's Note: remember that the Daleks have indeed been in Victorian England. (at least once during the era of the Second Doctor)


End file.
